By Scott Kennedy

How America’s war on Chinese tech backfired

In late September, the Biden administration issued a draft rule that would ban Chinese connected and autonomous vehicles and their components from the U.S. market. This is one of the latest of many steps that U.S. policymakers have taken to protect the United States’ economic security. Under the first Trump administration, Washington placed restrictions on the telecom companies ZTE and Huawei. President Joe Biden has maintained many of Trump’s policies toward China and advanced new ones, including initiating broad export controls in late 2022 on advanced semiconductors and semiconductor equipment. As the incoming Trump administration appears ready to accelerate and expand these restrictions further still, it’s worth considering the track record of these policies—and take stock of the tradeoffs that they entail.